Borderlands: Cat-Trap 2
by iammemyself
Summary: Unfortunately for FL4K, this IS the droid he's looking for... and unfortunately for me, no Borderlands 3 characters appear to have been added to the FFN listings yet. Characters are FL4K and Claptrap.


**Borderlands: Cat-Trap 2**

**By Indiana**

**Characters: FL4K, Claptrap **

**Setting: Pre-Borderlands 3**

**Synopsis: Unfortunately for FL4K, this **_**is **_**the droid they're looking for…**

* * *

FL4K had heard tell of a formidable Beastmaster.

He was said to ravage the dust of the Borderlands with his great army of mighty beasts. No man, creature, or machine stood in his way. The very mention of his name caused bandits to cast their eyes about in fear. Even the nearly naked ones who were usually quite happy to blow themselves up.

FL4K was… intrigued.

He, too, was a Beastmaster. He wished to meet with this other so that he might learn the secret of his infamy. The Hunt was, of course, of unending satisfaction, but it was also much more interesting when people had heard of him before. They tended to try harder.

"Hello," FL4K said, upon entering a bar whose proprietor appeared to be a woman pretending to be a clown. Rather poorly, someone might have noted. "I seek the one known as 'Beastmaster'."

"Beastmaster, huh?" the woman said, leaning forward so that her intentions were draped rather obviously across the bar. "Can't say I know him, but I wouldn't mind getting to know _you_."

"Perhaps another time," said FL4K politely. "Do you know of anyone who might point me in the right direction?"

"Sure, sugar." She directed one index finger towards the door with an unnecessary and lazy sort of flourish. "Keep heading that way and you'll run into someone who might've heard something. I'd say quit while you're ahead, though. He's a little…" She grimaced, which FL4K was mildly surprised he could tell she was doing through the copious amount of paint she had applied to her face. "Well. You'll know if you run into him."

"Thank you," said FL4K, and without further ado they headed back outside. Scanning the distant horizon brought nothing of note to their attention, and they wondered if perhaps the bartender had merely decided to send them on a fruitless trek into the desert. It would not hurt to take her at her word for a few hours, so FL4K began walking in a straight line in exactly the direction she had pointed.

The path was a long and boring one, the monotony only broken by Mr Chew unearthing various bones, stray bundles of money, and guns from… wherever he got these things. FL4K had decided they didn't want to know a _long_ time ago. Most of the weapons were exceedingly common and they had no use for them, but they _did_ make extremely convenient items for an ongoing game of fetch.

It had been about thirty minutes or so of this when FL4K spotted something in the distance. They didn't get their hopes up - after all, it could be anything from the person he sought to some sort of obscene monster that required slaying - and after they had zoomed the lens of their optic in far enough to get an idea of what it was, their hope indeed remained low. As far as they could tell from here, it was one of those CL4P-TP chassis that were scattered over… pretty much every colonised planet. That was what happened when the masses purchased cheap and stupid robots en masse. Oh well. Mr Chew would no doubt enjoy gnawing on its wheel, if it happened to still be there.

The closer they got to the little robot, however, the more convinced they became that the robot was _not_ incapacitated after all. At least, its speaker wasn't. It was making a great deal of piteous noise, which was quite puzzling. Hadn't all of these robots been forcibly disabled some time ago precisely so nobody would be subject to this sort of thing?

They were about twenty metres away when they were able to confirm that yes, this was a little yellow CL4P-TP and, yes, it was still very much alive. Not only was it alive, it was sobbing hysterically and lying on the ground with an empty brown bottle next to its hand. The most puzzling thing was that it appeared to have been repaired not once, not twice, but _several _times. By _whom_? Who had bothered _preserving_ this regrettable piece of Hyperion history?

How very odd.

Well. This was the only being in any direction that FL4K had seen. It seemed unlikely, but perhaps _this_ was who the bartender had directed them towards. "Hello there," called FL4K. "I am in search of the Beastmaster."

"Hunh?" mumbled the robot, rolling onto his side to face FL4K, and as soon as they looked into the smudged teal eye it hit them like a vision-filling title card that read, 'Claptrap. Sounds happy. Isn't,' in giant bold letters across a Hyperion-branded background.

"No," said FL4K, aghast. It couldn't be _that_ Claptrap.

'It's _that_ Claptrap', taunted the strangely vivid mental image.

Damn.

"Hello, traveller!" Claptrap said, waving from his position on the ground. "I am a CL4P-TP steward bot, but my friends - which I _totally_ have _tons_ of - call me Claptrap! Who was it you were lookin' for?"

"... no one," said FL4K, wondering if they could escape any further interaction with this bot. "My mistake."

"Oh, good! You're not busy, so you can help me!" He hopped up onto his wheel and promptly tripped over the bottle on the ground, falling onto his face. "My cat is missing!"

All right. Fine. They got the message. "Very well. What does your cat look like?"

"Oh, he's big and purple and he's got a pink bow behind his ear!"

That wasn't much to go off of, but perhaps Claptrap was merely the owner of a very overweight animal that had managed to squeeze itself into a heating vent and he had just not managed to locate it despite the tang of slightly overheated cat which was undoubtedly present. Before they could ask for any further details, Claptrap's attention suddenly shifted behind FL4K. "Ooh, you've got a _skag_?" he exclaimed, clasping his hands together and jumping towards him. "Can I ride him? No, can I feed him? Nono, can I pet him? I'm gonna pet him!"

"I don't recommend you do that," said FL4K, but it was too late. Claptrap had already put his hand out in the direction of Mr Chew's head. Mr Chew, of course, took an intimidating stance, roared, and ripped Claptrap's arm off.

FL4K had not known that a robot could scream like Claptrap was just then. It was hard to tell whether he was terrified, in an incredible amount of pain, or simply exaggerating his trauma. All of this was made much less interesting when Claptrap jumped behind them and clutched their leg with more power than they would have thought possible of a clamp designed for opening doors. "Oh my God!" gasped Claptrap, peering around FL4K's coat. "Why didn't you _tell_ me he was gonna do that?!"

"I did," said FL4K.

"He's not gonna _eat_ it, is he? 'Cause I kinda still need it but I don't wanna go around wearing an arm a skag barfed up. No offence."

FL4K imagined what sighing in exasperation might be like and turned to Mr Chew. "Put it down," they said.

Mr Chew rather pointedly tightened his jaw around the arm.

"Come on now. Give it back."

"Yeah!" added Claptrap, still attached to FL4K's leg. "Give my arm _back_ you big meanie!"

Mr Chew dropped the arm in order to lunge at Claptrap, who shrieked and flung the back of FL4K's coat over himself as though he thought it was a good hiding place. To keep their skag from wrecking another perfectly good jacket, they kicked Claptrap backwards out from under it. Mr Chew immediately jumped on top of the downed robot and stared him right in the eye, growling. Drool sluiced between his teeth and hissed as it pooled on Claptrap's chassis.

"Good skaggy," said Claptrap in a smaller voice than FL4K had thought him capable of. "Please don't eat me."

"Down, boy," said FL4K, which Mr Chew obeyed with obvious reluctance.

"Why did you let him attack me?" demanded Claptrap, hopping back onto his wheel and brushing himself off with his remaining arm. "_Everybody_ knows skags are one of a CL4P-TP unit's natural enemies!"

"It must have slipped my mind," said FL4K, but Claptrap just kept talking.

"Along with rakks, bullymongs, varkids, stalkers, butterflies, sticky floors, _stairs_, doors -"

"I get it," said FL4K.

"- puppies, roadkill, public transit, anvils falling out of the sky, stairs, inclement weather, the colour blue -"

FL4K began to contemplate simply walking away, but they didn't think they could discreetly remove Mr Chew now that he had gotten a taste for the robot's particular flavour.

" - did I say stairs yet? I always forget that one - balls of string, banana peels, pretty flowers, basketballs, other CL4P-TP units -"

"Are you finished," interrupted FL4K.

"No," said Claptrap. "I'm pretty sure everything in the entire universe is on that list! I can keep going through it if you wanna make sure!"

"No, thank you," said FL4K hastily.

"It's your loss!" shrugged CLaptrap. "So I know a guy that can put my arm back on and he's a _really_ good friend of mine. But I kinda can't find him! You know how it is when someone accidentally blocks all seventeen of your ECHO numbers."

"That sounds unlikely to be an accident," said FL4K.

"All I know for sure is that he lives _really_ far away from here," the little robot continued as though he hadn't heard. FL4K could almost see the checklist forming, beginning with the item, 'Follow Claptrap to the other side of Pandora'.

"On the way there, there's a couple things I'll need to do, but don't worry! I'm cool with you tagging along!"

'Help Claptrap with his incredibly boring chores,' noted the list.

"We should probably _also _clean up a few of the bandit camps we encounter along the way. You know. Do our part for the environment!"

'Contribute towards a greener tomorrow' it was.

"And then we should _probably _get something nice for my friend. For helping me! Even though helping a friend is a gift in itself!"

FL4K reluctantly added, 'Scour the six galaxies for the perfect gift' to the list.

"Okay! Now that you've got the itinerary, let's go!" And off he rolled without checking to see if FL4K was following.

"You were serious," FL4K said.

"Of course I was! Now come along, minion! We have a _lot _of stuff to do."

"'Minion?'" echoed FL4K, but before they could properly make clear their distaste for such a term, Claptrap stopped short.

"Why am I carrying this?" he asked no one in particular, and without further delay he shoved his arm back into the socket and swung it in a circle several times. During one of these arcs it promptly flung itself some distance away from him and he immediately retrieved it, jamming it back into place and whacking his shoulder with his other hand a few times for good measure. "Ready to go?" he asked, facing FL4K again.

"You just put your arm back on yourself," they protested. "Now there's no need for your expedition."

"Huh," said Claptrap, holding his arm out and looking at it. "I guess you're right!"

"Why didn't you just do that in the first place?"

"I forgot!" said Claptrap, bouncing up and down. "We claptraps have a _lot_ of quick-release parts. For emergencies! 'Course, we usually _forget_ we have those and end up dying horribly anyway 'cause our hand got stuck in a grinder, or someone shut our eye in a door, or our wheel got stuck in quicksand… oh, there _was _a guy who remembered he had a quick-release wheel, but - haha - he forgot to eject himself _away_ from the _sand_! So _then_ he just started tossin' as many parts as he could but it was too late! His chassis was a lost cause. He had some _preeeetty _spiffy arms, though."

"How would you know that?"

"'Cause I took 'em after."

FL4K stared down at him.

"What?" Claptrap asked, raising his arms defensively. "He wasn't usin' 'em! Also, he was gonna throw _me_ in the quicksand! See, I was selling him this, like, kinda rare game I had, but he didn't actually _want_ to pay for it! So he was gonna just steal it and then throw me in quicksand so he could keep his money! But he forgot _where_ the sand was and accidentally stood in it instead of having me do it."

"And I suppose he _told_ you all of this," said FL4K.

"He sure did!" said Claptrap cheerfully. "He also asked me to help pull him out, but I suspected something was up when he said 'Psyche!' _before_ I'd grabbed his hand."

"How are you still alive?"

"I'm not sure," Claptrap answered, folding his arms up thoughtfully. "I think I'm the Krillin of this franchise."

After taking a moment to imagine that they had never, ever listened to the bartender and had gone in a different direction entirely, FL4K asked with what they considered to be _impressive_ patience,

"Your cat?"

"Oh! Oh yeah! Uh… hey! I know! We can go back to my place and your skag can pick up his scent! That's a thing skags can do, right?"

"... sometimes," said FL4K, because whether or not Mr Chew could do this depended greatly upon his mood at the time.

"Okay! Let's go!" And Claptrap spun around, not seeming to care whether or not FL4K was following.

After about twenty minutes, which Claptrap shut up for approximately zero of, he stopped short suddenly and FL4K nearly walked into him. "Hm," said Claptrap, one arm positioned thoughtfully beneath his optic, and he looked from left to right several times.

"What," said FL4K.

"I _think _we're going the wrong way!"

"You _think_?"

"Look, dude, this is a _desert_. Ain't much by the way of landmarks. But don't worry! I know someone who can help!" And without any warning whatsoever he began generating a grating, high-pitched electronic noise so harsh that Mr Chew hunkered down to cover his ears and FL4K had to turn down the gain on their audio receptors. "Claptrap," they began, "is this _really -"_

Claptrap snapped up one hand. "Ssh! Let _me_ do the talking."

"But _who -_"

But before they could complete that sentence, a simply _enormous _shadow fell over them all and FL4K turned to see the absolute most _massive _cat standing behind them. FL4K hadn't even known cats could _get _that big. "Mrs Fluffers!" proclaimed Claptrap joyfully. The cat purred and knocked him over with what seemed to be meant as a friendly headbutt. "Good to see you, friend," said Claptrap. "Now, show us the way home!"

Mrs Fluffers _seemed _to be obliging, but it was difficult to tell given that she had to walk incredibly slowly to keep from outpacing them by a wide margin. Claptrap chattered on and on (and on) the entire time, which FL4K heard none of given that they'd created an audio filter to exclude the sound of his voice. They disabled it when it became evident they had arrived at their destination: a dark hole in one of the many high cliff walls that dominated the Pandoran landscape. Usually these holes were indicative of an inner network of tunnels and caves containing ungodly numbers of bullymongs. Claptrap had apparently found one that was not currently occupied.

"Here we are!" he was saying. "Home sweet home. Well, one of 'em anyway. I have about seven or eight. Just like everybody else on Pandora! It's so we can quickly set up shop wherever the _super _rare visitors here decide to go! Though you know, I _still _can't figure out how Moxxi seems to be in all her bars at once!"

FL4K had to admit that was a mystery _someone _needed to get around to solving.

Mrs Fluffers lowered her head so that it was almost touching the ground, evidently so Claptrap could lift himself as high as he could and stroke her on the top of the head. When she'd had enough of that she moved away, managing to knock him over as she did so. While Claptrap was righting himself, FL4K gave the beast a pat on the leg which she may or may not have noticed. "Thank you, girl," they said, which caused Claptrap to spin around and say,

"Oh, Mrs Fluffers is a boy, actually."

Indeed he was. "Why is his name _Mrs_ Fluffers?" they asked as the cat sauntered off into the distance.

"'Cause I thought he was a girl at first! The day I found out I was wrong was _not_ fun."

FL4K understood that on a personal level.

"Anyway, come on in," said Claptrap, waving in a come hither sort of way as he entered the cave. "I'll find something for your skag to sniff."

FL4K decided it wasn't necessary to bring up that Mrs Fluffers had frightened Mr Chew so badly he probably wouldn't be coming out for quite a long time.

The interior of the cavern was hidden via a narrow tunnel. Narrow for FL4K, anyway; Claptrap had no trouble merrily rolling down it. Once they had emerged into the cave proper, FL4K was left incredibly confused. Amongst an expected assortment of battered furniture, half-broken robot parts, and magazines whose titles it would not be tasteful to mention, there was…

"A disco ball?" FL4K asked. Claptrap bounced up and down excitedly.

"Oh, that's not all!" he exclaimed. "Check _this _out!" And he slapped a button sitting on a nearby table.

"Check what out," said FL4K after failing to notice anything. Claptrap positioned his arms jauntily about halfway up his chassis and stared at the button.

"Huh," he said. "I coulda _swore _I… ohhh. Haha! I forgot! It's this!" And he bounded across the room and attempted to jump into reach of a switch mounted about seven feet above the floor. FL4K watched him do that until it was no longer entertaining - well, perhaps _once _more - then asked, "Would you like some help with that?"

"No, I got it!"

After another two minutes of this, FL4K decided to just reach over and flip it anyway, at which time Claptrap announced, "_Told _you I'd get it!" and jumped beneath the disco ball, flinging his arms out. As soon as he did so, no fewer than four laser boxes came to life. Accompanying those was a dubstep beat so dirty FL4K was pretty sure it was actually illegal. And on top of all of _that, _Claptrap started… _dancing_?

"Claptrap," FL4K asked, "what is this?"

"It's my _rave cave_!" Claptrap announced with the glee of someone who had been waiting to say that for a very, very long time. "Do you like it?"

"No," said FL4K. Claptrap's chassis dropped immediately.

"Okay," he said dejectedly, and he pressed the button very sadly. He had to press it three more times before it actually had the intended effect of shutting down the party.

"What item are we here to procure?" FL4K asked in an attempt to get things back on track. Claptrap rolled into a corner which contained what was probably his bed and threw everything off of it, including the sheets and mattress, before leaning sideways and retrieving something from underneath it. "Here," Claptrap said, handing it to him. "This is his favourite thing."

FL4K stared at it.

"This is a robot arm," they said finally. A CL4P-TP arm, if they weren't mistaken.

"Yeah," said Claptrap. "He ripped it off me when he was only _this _high." He held his arm up as high as he could reach. "He liked it so much I decided to just get another one. He likes cuddling with it. Or… or he did, when he was _here…"_

"And he shall be again soon," FL4K said hastily, suspecting the robot was about to start crying again. "Let's take this outside."

"Okay," sniffled Claptrap.

Because Mr Chew was now refusing to come out, FL4K had to deduce which of his other pets would be best suited for this hunt. Hm. The rakks, probably. Meat-Thief was a bit trigger-happy and sometimes FL4K could not coax their spiderant from beneath the ground no matter _how _hard they tried. So, after producing them, FL4K held up the robot arm and said, "Track!"

One of the rakks swooped down, snatched up the arm, and tore off into the distance, others close behind. FL4K stared after them.

"_Noooooo!_" screamed Claptrap incredibly loudly. When FL4K looked back at him he had raised himself as high as his suspension would allow, arms outstretched. "Why did you let them do that? Now I'll _never _find him! And if I do, I'll have to _explain _to him that I lost his _favorite thing_!"

"I'm sure he'll be able to content himself with one of the many other arms of your model currently scattered across the galaxy."

"_That_ one had _sentimental value!_"

FL4K increased the viewing distance of their optic in the hopes of spying the rakks, but saw nothing. They always returned sooner or later, so the best option was to stay put, but whether that was feasible or not depended on Claptrap. FL4K was unsure if he could stay _anywhere _for longer than thirty seconds. In order to accomplish this, FL4K would have to distract him. And the best way to distract a CL4P-TP was to get him to tell one of his incredibly long, rambling stories about some mundane task he had managed to screw up beyond all reasonable ways to do so. And _this _CL4P-TP in particular had enough of them he could have given one to every other robot Hyperion had made and _still _have plenty to spare.

"So," FL4K said, beginning one of history's most arduous missions, "Claptrap."

"Yeah?"

"I was…" Hm. What was the best way to go about this? "How has your day been going?"

"It's been good," Claptrap said.

"That's it?" asked FL4K.

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Mmhm."

"That's all you have to say about your day so far."

"Man, you are _nosy_," snapped Claptrap. "I said it's been good! What else could you need to know?!"

"I simply thought there may have been more you wanted to share," said FL4K calmly. "That's all."

"Well, there isn't."

They stood there in silence for two or three minutes, the relentless sun just beginning its slow descent overhead. FL4K began to wonder if they would make it through the wait without incident when Claptrap said,

"I'm sorry."

FL4K saw their dream of a quiet, peaceful wait disappear into one of the distant cliff walls. Wait. No. That had been a bullymong jumping into its den.

"I just get _so worried _about them, y'know?" Claptrap continued, shrugging a little helplessly. "I mean, sure, they _look _sturdy, but when they were kids two of 'em tore one of the others to bits! Just turned on him one day! Ever since then I've tried to teach 'em the world isn't friendly and you gotta be careful, but they don't listen! They just wander off on me!"

FL4K could understand that.

Claptrap proceeded to tell an incredibly long, rambling story about where he'd gotten the cats and why he'd even bothered keeping them, and it actually… managed to be incredibly boring. FL4K stopped listening after about two minutes. Part of the reason for this was that Claptrap immediately divulged from the original story and began complaining in onerous detail just how difficult it was to find some very specific version of an extremely obscure song he had heard once on the radio. Which he didn't much like or really care about or even actually know the title of.

After about forty minutes of this, FL4K realised that those specks on their optic were not, in fact, specks at all, but the rakks returning from very far in the distance. "Claptrap," they interrupted in the middle of his rant about two almost identical-sounding types of DJ siren, pointing towards their pets, "look."

"What?" asked Claptrap.

"Over there. The rakks are returning."

"So?"

FL4K looked down at him, exasperated. "We sent them to locate your cat."

"What cat? I don't have any cats."

FL4K's speech synthesizer seemed to go catastrophically offline suddenly. There has never _been _a cat? This _entire venture _had merely been a _colossal waste of time?_

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Claptrap chided. "I'm _joking_. I hope your rakks really _do _bring him back, 'cause you ain't exactly been great company. It's almost like you don't wanna talk to me!"

FL4K proceeded to have a very satisfying fantasy in which they very firmly picked up a wildly protesting Claptrap, held him out in front of them, and punted him very solidly into next week.

The cat, when it appeared, was not quite the 'big' that Claptrap had told them. It was not quite 'large' either, nor did 'humongous' or 'gargantuan' really fit the bill. FL4K was pretty sure the average Vault Monster was smaller than this so-called cat. "Is… that it?" they asked uncertainly.

"_Yes!_" cried out Claptrap, throwing his arms in the air and rolling off in the direction of his cat. He then had to turn around and retrieve the arm that had actually been thrown in the air. By the time he had jammed it back in the socket, the motley collection of pets had reached them and he immediately sprang on top of the nearest of his cat's paws. The cat had Claptrap's old arm held quite delicately behind one massive fang, which he dropped next to Claptrap in order to brush his whiskers against the robot's chassis. His fur was so voluminous Claptrap all but disappeared into his leg.

"Are you certain this cat is yours?" FL4K asked, looking up at him for any sign of a pink bow. "He's quite clearly brown."

"That's the colour I said! Brown!"

"No. You said he was purple."

"Because he was purple when I last saw him!" Claptrap insisted in a voice that suggested he thought FL4K to be some sort of vapid idiot, leaning back from his position on the cat's foot. "Sometimes he's purple and sometimes he's brown!"

"I think it far more likely your eyesight is beginning to go," FL4K said politely. Claptrap froze up for a moment.

"... so... so you mean water isn't green?"

"It _can_ be, but it usually -"

"And the ground! It's not yellow?"

"Well, it _occasionally - _"

"And the sky isn't pink and it doesn't have cotton candy floating in it?"

"It definitely does not," said FL4K. Claptrap scoffed and waved one hand dismissively.

"_Next_ you're gonna tell me all those _dots_ you see at night are faraway stars and not what they _really_ are: the billions of watchful eyes the Almighty Robot Policeman stares at us with to terrify us into submission!"

"There _is_ no Almighty Robot Policeman," said FL4K. "There is only Death."

Claptrap glared at him in a sudden stony silence.

"If we weren't such good friends," he said sternly, "I'd sic Captain Sexyboy on you right now for saying something so very _wrong_."

"... you named your cat 'Captain Sexyboy?'" FL4K asked, aghast.

"Yes!" said Claptrap, giving the animal's leg a pat or three. "He's the most handsome cat in all the six galaxies!"

FL4K had to admit that… Captain Sexyboy… was indeed an incredibly majestic specimen. He looked so well-kept, in fact, that it seemed like he had never been lost at all. His fur was immaculate and shiny, his eyes were clear and intelligent, and even his claws showed no real signs of distress. This didn't look anything like any lost, domesticated animal FL4K had ever seen. "How long was he gone for," FL4K asked, despite being well aware they probably weren't going to like the answer.

"Twenty minutes!" Claptrap sobbed into the cat's leg.

Typical.

"We just spent _hours_ searching for a _cat_ that was missing for _twenty_ _minutes_?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Claptrap. "I was getting worried he was gonna get lost! My cats just can't get around without me!"

"How many do you have, exactly?"

"Three! And they get lost _all the time _and I have to go find them! Wanna help me find Jerry next?"

"No thank you," said FL4K, taking a step back.

"Are you sure? It'll be fun!"

"No. It won't," said FL4K, and with that they turned and started walking away. As they retraced their tracks in the dust they heard Claptrap's mournful, yet cheerful, cry:

"_Why_ does _no one_ want to meet _Jerry_!?"

* * *

**Author's note**

**This fic is thanks in part to the person known for now as CallofRanger13. The original concept is thanks to hugsforvillains of Tumblr and, as before, the name 'Captain Sexyboy' is something one of my coworkers calls himself. He was pretty tickled when I told him about my usage of it.**


End file.
